And Helen looks at the radio and says, "Are you hearing this? This is ridiculous." She says, "Listen," and turns up the radio.
"... Brennan," the voice says, "who lived inside a fortress of armed bodyguards, has also been under constant FBI surveillance ..."
And to me, Helen says, "Do they even use Teletypes anymore?"
The call she just got—the blue-white diamond—the name she wrote in her daily planner, it was Gustave Brennan.
Chapter 23
Centuries ago, sailors on long voyages used to leave a pair of pigs on every deserted island. Or they'd leave a pair of goats. Either way, on any future visit, the island would be a source of meat. These islands, they were pristine. These were home to breeds of birds with no natural predators. Breeds of birds that lived nowhere else on earth. The plants there, without enemies they evolved without thorns or poisons. Without predators and enemies, these islands, they were paradise.
The sailors, the next time they visited these islands, the only things still there would be herds of goats or pigs.
Oyster is telling this story.
The sailors called this "seeding meat."
Oyster says, "Does this remind you of anything? Maybe the ol' Adam and Eve story?"
Looking out the car window, he says, "You ever wonder when God's coming back with a lot of barbecue sauce?"
Outside is some Great Lake, water stretched to the horizon, nothing but zebra mussels and lamprey eels, Oyster says. The air stinks with rotting fish.
Mona has a pillow of barley and lavender pressed over her face with both hands. The red henna designs on the back of her hands spread down the length of each finger. Red snakes and vines twisted together.
His cell phone rings, and Oyster pulls out the antenna. He puts it to his head and says, "Deemer, Davis and Hope, Attorneys-at-Law."
He twists a finger in his nose, then takes it out and looks at the finger. Into his phone, Oyster says, "How long after eating there did the diarrhea manifest itself?" He sees me looking and flicks the finger at me.
Helen, with her own cell phone, says, "The people who lived there before were very happy. It's a beautiful house."
In the local newspaper, the Erie Register-Sentinel, an ad in the Entertainment section says:
Attention Patrons of the Country House Golf Club
The ad says: "Have you contracted a medication-resistant staph infection from the swimming pool or locker room facilities? If so, please call the following number to be part of a class-action lawsuit."
You know the number is Oyster's cell phone.
In the 1870s, Oyster says, a man named Spencer Baird decided to play God. He decided the cheapest form of protein for Americans was the European carp. For twenty years, he shipped baby carp to every part of the country. He convinced a hundred different railroads to carry his baby carp and release them in every body of water their trains passed. He even outfitted special railroad tanker cars that carried nine-ton shipments of baby carp to every watershed in North America.
Helen's phone rings and she flips it open. Her daily planner open on the seat next to her, she says, "And where exactly is His Royal Highness at this time?" and she writes a name under today's date in the book. Into her phone, Helen says, "Ask Mr. Drescher to get me the pair of citron and emerald clips."
In another newspaper, the Cleveland Herald-Monitor, in the Lifestyles section is an ad that says:
Attention Patrons of the Apparel-Design Chain of Clothing Stores
The ad says: "If you've contracted genital herpes while trying on clothing, please call the following number to be part of a class-action lawsuit."
And, again, the same number. Oyster's number.
In 1890, Oyster says, another man decided to play God. Eugene Schieffelin released sixty Sturnus vulgaris, the European starling, in New York's Central Park. Fifty years later, the birds had spread to San Francisco. Today, there are more than 200 million starlings in America. All this because Schieffelin wanted the New World to include every bird mentioned by Shakespeare.
And into his cell phone, Oyster says, "No, sir, your name will be held in strictest confidence."
Helen flips her phone shut, and she cups a gloved hand over her nose and mouth, saying, "What is that awful smell?"
And Oyster puts his cell phone against his shirt and says, "Alewife die-off."
Ever since they reengineered the Welland Canal in 1921 to allow more shipping around Niagara Falls, he says, the sea lamprey has infested all the Great Lakes. These parasites suck the blood of the larger fish, the trout and salmon, killing them. Then the smaller fish are left with no predators and their population explodes. Then they run out of plankton to eat, and starve by the millions.
"Stupid greedy alewives," Oyster says. "Remind you of any other species?"
He says, "Either a species learns to control its own population, or something like disease, famine, war, will take care of the is-sue."
Mona's muffled voice through her pillow, she says, "Don't tell them. They won't understand."
And Helen opens her purse on the seat beside her. She opens it with one hand and takes out a polished cylinder. With the air-conditioning on high, she sprays breath freshener on a handkerchief and holds it over her nose. She sprays breath freshener into the air-conditioning vents, and says, "Is this about the culling poem?"
And without turning around, I say, "You'd use the poem for population control?"
And Oyster laughs and says, "Kind of."
Mona lowers the pillow to her lap and says, "This is about the grimoire."
And punching another number into his cell phone, Oyster says, "If we find it, we all have to share it."
And I say, we're destroying it.
"After we read it," Helen says.
And into his phone, Oyster says, "Yes, I'll hold." And to us, he says, "This is so typical. We have the entire power structure of Western society in this one car."
According to Oyster, the "dads" have all the power so they don't want anything to change.
He means me.
I'm counting 1, counting 2, counting 3 ...
Oyster says all the "moms" have a little power, but they're hungry for more.
He means Helen.
I'm counting 4, counting 5, counting 6 ...
And young people, he says, have little or no power so they're desperate for any.
Oyster and Mona.
I'm counting 7, counting 8 ..., and Oyster's voice goes on and on.
This quiet-ophobic. This talk-oholic.
Smiling with just half his mouth, Oyster says, "Every generation wants to be the last." Into the phone, he says, "Yeah, I'd like to place a retail display ad." He says, "Yeah, I'll hold."
Mona puts the pillow back over her face. The red snakes and vines go down the length of each finger.
Cheatgrass, Oyster says. Mustard. Kudzu.
Carp. Starlings. Seeding meat.
Looking out the car window, Oyster says, "You ever wonder if Adam and Eve were just the puppies God dumped because they wouldn't house-train?"
He rolls down the window and the smell blows inside, the stinking warm wind of dead fish, and shouting against the wind, he says, "Maybe humans are just the pet alligators that God flushed down the toilet."
Chapter 24
At the next library, I ask to wait in the car while Helen and Mona go inside and find the book. With them gone, I flip through the pages of Helen's daily planner. Almost every day is a name, some of them names I know. The dictator of some banana republic or a figure from organized crime. Each name crossed out with a single red slash. The last dozen names I write on a scrap of paper. Between the names are Helen's notes for meetings, her handwriting scrolled and perfect as jewelry.
Watching me from the backseat, Oyster's kicked back with his arms folded behind his head. His bare feet are crossed and propped up on the back of the front seat so they hang next to my face. A silver ring around one of his big toes. Calluses on the soles, the gray calluses are cracked, dirty, and Oyster says, "Mom's not going to like that, you going through her personal secret shit."
Reading the book backward from today's date, I go through three years of names, assassinations, before Helen and Mona are walking back through the parking lot.
Oyster's phone rings, and he answers it, "Donner, Diller and Dunes, Attorneys-at-Law ..."
There's still most of the book I don't get a chance to read. Years and years of pages. Toward the end of the book, there are years and years of blank pages for Helen still to fill.
Helen's talking on her phone when she gets to the car. She's saying, "No, I want the step-cut aquamarine that used to belong to the Emperor Zog."
Mona gets into the backseat, saying, "Did you miss us?" She says, "Another culling song down the toilet."
And Oyster folds his legs into the backseat, saying, "Does the rash bleed?" into his cell phone.
Helen snaps her fingers for me to hand her the daily planner. Into the phone, she says, "Yes, the two-hundred-carat aquamarine. Call Drescher in Geneva." She opens the planner and writes a name under today's date.
Mona says, "I was thinking." She says, "Do you think the original grimoire might have a flying spell? I'd love that. Or an invisibility spell?" She gets her Mirror Book out of her knapsack and starts coloring in it. She says, "I want to be able to talk to animals, too. Oh, and do telekinesis, you know, move stuff with my mind . . ."
Helen starts the car and says, loud at the rearview mirror, "I'm sewing my fish."
She puts her cell phone and her pen in her purse. Still in her purse is the small gray stone from Mona's witch party, the stone the coven gave to her. When Oyster was naked. His wrinkled pink stalactite of skin pierced with its little silver ring.
Mona, that same night, Mulberry, and the two muscles of her back, the way they split into the two firm, creamy white halves of her ass, and I'm counting 1, counting 2, counting 3 ...
In the next little town, in the next library, I ask Helen and Mona to wait in the car with Oyster while I go inside and hunt for the poems book.
This is some small-town library in the middle of the day. A librarian is behind the checkout desk. The most recent newspapers are mounted in big hardcover bindings you sit at a big table to read. In today's paper is Gustave Brennan. In yesterday's is some wacko religious leader in the Middle East. Two days ago, it was some death row inmate on his latest appeal.
Everyone in Helen's planner book died on the date their name is listed.
In between are newspaper articles about something worse. Denni D'Testro today. Three days ago, it's Samantha Evian. A week ago, it's Dot Leine. All of them young, all of them fashion models, all of them found dead without an apparent cause of death. Before that was Mimi Gonzalez, found dead by her boyfriend, dead in bed with no marks, nothing. No clues until the autopsy announced today shows signs of post-mortem sexual intercourse.
Nash.
Helen comes in, asking, "I'm hungry. What's taking you so long?"
My list of names is on the table beside me. Next to that is a newspaper article with a photo of Gustave Brennan. In front of me is another article showing the funeral of some convicted child molester I found listed in Helen's daily planner.
And Helen looks at everything in one glance and says, "So now you know."
She sits on the edge of the table, her thighs stretching her skirt tight across her lap, and she says, "You wanted to know how to control your power, well, this is what works for me."
The secret is to turn pro, she says. Do something only for money, and you're less likely to do it for free. "You don't think prostitutes want a lot of sex outside of their brothel?" she says.